Goblins' Fist
by Lord Dragon Claw
Summary: Genma doesn't find the Nekoken training manual but he finds a manual very similar to it. Little does he know that it will benefit Ranma and Ranma only... Note: Harem of three girls. Rated M for limes.
1. Thirteen Hours

Goblins' Fist

by Lord Dragon Claw

Disclaimer: Rumiko Takahashi owns "Ranma 1/2" and the Jim Henson Company owns "Labyrinth".

Chapter One: Thirteen Hours

* * *

Jareth was once a human child, stolen away by the previous Goblin King. The book entitled Labyrinth recounted Jareth's mother's attempt to rescue him from the Goblin City. It was a fairly accurate book, up until the ending. The book said that she succeeded, whereas in reality she failed. The Goblin King turned Jareth into a goblin, and made him his heir. Jareth learned powerful magic and became the next Goblin King. 

Years later, Jareth was found in the center of the Impossibility Room, scrying into the future, seeing if his endeavor to ensnare a British girl named Sarah and her little brother Toby into being his Queen and heir respectfully. Such a scry was difficult to do, was very taxing, and could only be done at certain points in the Lunar Year. The worst part was, any being who scryed into the future would never be able to do it again. Such was the nature of magic.

Coming out of a trance, Jareth opened his eyes. He had watched what would've happened had he stolen Toby away and guided Sarah into navigating the Labyrinth. He would have lost many of his allies, and he would have lost the loyalty of the cowardly treasure collector, Hoggle. On top of that, he would've managed to net neither Sarah nor Toby.

Jareth decided against capturing Toby. Sure, with some training the boy would've become a powerful mage, but maybe a slightly older boy might fit the bill. Rather than checking every single house in England, Jareth decided to randomly check a few residences in a different island nation: Japan. The third house he checked yielded results. The best candidate to be turned into a goblin was currently five years old and living in the Juuban ward of Tokyo. The small boy and his tub-o-lard of a father were preparing to leave on a training trip. Perfect set-up.

_What's this?_ thought Jareth. _This boy is a powerful chaos magnet, more powerful than any other child. He shall make a wonderful heir. Following the laws of magic, especially chaos magic, the next chaos nexus he will reach will be..._ He cocked his head as additional images were displayed in a crystal sphere as he made various calculations in his head. Finally, he found the next strongest chaos magnet near the boy. _A book?_ _Ah yes. The Neko-Ken Training Manual. One of my predecessor's greatest pranks on the humans of Earth._ He checked the fat man's past. _When his father finds the manual, he will undoubtedly train his son in it, if his past actions are any indication. The Neko-Ken's madness will be detrimental to the boy... Ah. Idea!_

He exited the Impossibility room via an upside-down doorway and quickly headed to his throne room. As always, several of the goblins were drunk, others were partying, others still were playing dice games, and the last group was having an all-out brawl in the center while the goblins from the other three groups made bets. A vein bulged on Jareth's head. He summoned his cane to his hand and started beating some discipline into the disgusting creatures. When he was done, they all looked punch drunk.

Jareth went to one of the sneakier goblins, who had been cheating in the dice games. The little guy wore simple robes, and was named Hrekkin. He had managed to avoid most of the blows aimed at him, and was one of the few still conscious. Jareth brought him to an adjacent audience chamber, where he set the little goblin down on a table.

"Hrekkin," Jareth began. "I have a job for you to do. There is a Neko-Ken Training Manual on Earth that I want you to switch with this book." Jareth swirled one of his crystal spheres and it turned into a book.

"What's in it for me?" asked the small and sneaky goblin.

"Do this for me," the Goblin King began, in a singsong voice that quickly became threatening. "and I _won't_ dunk you head first into the Bog of Eternal Stench!" Hrekkin was very frightened. "Also, I'll give you a gold bar as big as you are if you manage to not be seen by any humans on Earth. Agreed?" The little goblin grinned eagerly.

"Agreed," Hrekkin said as he gingerly took the book.

Jareth showed the small goblin which Neko-Ken Training Manual he was to replace, and where it was, then sent him on his way through the Shade Nexusgate. Jareth knew that Hrekkin's fear would compel him to complete the task and his greed would cause him to remain hidden.

_Now to visit Hoggle, the half-dwarf._ _Having him as the boy's guide will likely be most beneficial._

* * *

Saotome Genma believed he had finally discovered the means to his early retirement. He found a training manual on an ultimate technique and was gathering enough cats to put Ranma, who was six, through the training. He had also managed to steal enough fish sausages to wrap the boy in. Which he had just finished doing so. 

"Daddy, this technique sounds scary to learn!"

"If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times, 'A martial artist must suffer for his art'! Now get in there!"

Ranma screamed out in fear as Genma quickly covered the pit with a manhole cover he managed to steal from the local city. Genma went to initiate the next step in the training. Hisses and yowls and screams of pain rose up from the pit.

"Let's see..." Genma was reading the next set of directions. "'Recite the following incantation.' Right. 'I wish the goblins would take you away right now!'"

Immediately the boy's screams were silenced. Genma glanced at the next direction.

"'After the trainee stops screaming, wait thirteen hours for results.' Hmm... that's more than enough time to steal... er, borrow a bite to eat."

Of course, Genma didn't read the next page at all. It read "Side effects include insomnia, insanity, an obsession with crystal spheres, change of hair color, and a general change of behavior. All effects of the Goblins' Fist training are irreversible. If the trainee does not learn the Goblins' Fist, the trainee will die. Trainer assumes all responsibility for his or her own stupidity."

Had Genma read that last line, he wouldn't have considered teaching Ranma the Goblins' Fist at all. He didn't like responsibility of any sort. Too bad for him!

* * *

Ranma found himself hurtled into the pit of starving cats. They began to savage his body trying to get at the fish products, but then the cats started backing off. He was lifted by a number of small hands, which had quickly removed the fish products from his body and thrown them to the felines. He felt the sensation of movement, and the darkness was suddenly replaced by a mid-morning light. He was suddenly dropped before his eyes were able to adjust, and he could hear snickering and whispering as whatever had carried him quietly and quickly snuck away. 

Ranma observed his surroundings. It seemed as though the land he was in was parched, but not quite a desert. There was a withered tree next to him on the small hill he found himself. A good four kilometers off, he saw a wall. Beyond the wall was a maze of some sort, and in the center of the maze was a city and a castle.

"That is the Labyrinth," said a voice behind Ranma, startling him.

Ranma turned around to face the person or thing that had somehow gotten behind him without him noticing. The being was a tall man, with his white hair in a punk-rocker style, and weird eyebrows that were black, white, and light blue in coloring. The man's eyes were brown, and his physical appearance was that of a British athlete. The man wore black and dark-purple leather, as well as a black cape. In one of his hands he was holding a trio of crystal spheres and twirling them around one another.

"Who are you?" asked Ranma.

"I am Jareth," responded the man. "I am the Goblin King."

"You don't look like a goblin."

Jareth laughed. "I am a human who was turned into a goblin. It will be from me that you shall learn the Goblins' Fist. That is, if you pass my test." He gestured to the tree, upon which was a clock with the numbers one through thirteen on it. "You have thirteen hours in which to solve the Labyrinth. Succeed, and you shall learn the Goblins' Fist. Fail, and I shall feed your bones to my subjects. Good luck, Ranma." With that, he disappeared as did the clock.

"How did he know my name?" thought Ranma out loud. He began running at a moderate pace towards the outer wall of the Labyrinth.

Just outside the wall, Ranma saw one of the ugliest things he had ever seen. It was taller than he was, but not by much. Its head was huge. So was its nose. Its skin was all wrinkly but it didn't look old. It was wearing some rather simple clothing, and had a number of jewels and trinkets hanging from its belt. It was currently urinating into a small pool of water... well, it didn't smell like water.

Ranma waited for the strange creature to finish. _Is this a goblin?_

Once the creature did, it turned around, spared a glance at Ranma, then went and picked up a bug sprayer. It began to spray the fairies near the Labyrinth's wall, counting as it did so. "Fif... tee six!"

"Excuse me..." Ranma began.

"Fif... tee... seven! Fifty... eight! Fif... tee nine. And... sixty!"

"Hey ugly! At least acknowledge me!"

The creature shook his head and turned around. "My name's not Ugly, it's Hoggle. Ugly was the name of my mother." Hoggle turned around as Ranma facefaulted. "Six... tee one."

"Why are you doing that!?"

"Because the little pests breed just as fast as I can spray them. Sixty... two!"

"What's wrong with them?" Ranma asked as he picked up the sixty-first fairy. He suddenly dropped it. "GAH!"

Hoggle turned to look at Ranma.

"The stupid thing bit me!"

"Well, what did you expect?"

Ranma looked up at Hoggle, then started walking up to him, taking great care to stamp the fairy that bit him into the dust.

_King Jareth was right,_ thought Hoggle. _This kid is prime goblin material!_

"I'm Ranma."

"I thought as much."

"..." Ranma simply raised an eyebrow. "Well, see ya!" He then leapt towards the top of the wall, and immediately smacked into an invisible barrier.

"Can't get in that way. You'd have to use the door. Six... tee three!"

Ranma rubbed his head. "So where is it?"

"Where is what?"

"The door."

"What door? Sixty... four!"

"The door to the Labyrinth!"

"What about it?"

A vein bulged on Ranma's head. "Talking to you is pointless!"

"Not if you ask the right questions... Six... tee... five and six in the same shot!!" Hoggle jumped three feet in the air, clearly excited about his triumph.

"Okay... How do I get into the Labyrinth?"

"See? That wasn't so hard. You get in through there." Hoggle pointed to a gate that wasn't there earlier. As he pointed at it, the two doors opened outwards.

They both stepped through the gate. Ranma took a look around, and it seemed like the two opposing directions from the gate went on forever.

Ranma took a moment to think of which question he was going to ask. "Which of the two paths end, have openings, or turn? They seem to go on forever."

Hoggle raised an eyebrow. "Both of them do. And you aren't going to get very far; you take too many things for granted. So, which way will you go? Left or right?"

"Which way would you go?"

"Me? I wouldn't go either way."

"... Never mind. Thanks for nothing Hobble." Ranma began to head to the right.

"IT'S 'HOGGLE'! And don't say I didn't try to warn you!" Hoggle stormed out of the Labyrinth, closing the gate behind him.

* * *

A short time later, Ranma was extremely frustrated. 

"He said that they both had turns or openings! But there's nothing but forever no matter which way I go! ARGH!"

Ranma sat down. He then heard a voice next to his head.

"Allo."

Ranma looked and saw a worm wearing a scarf looking right back at him.

"Did you just say 'hello'?"

"No, I said 'allo', but that's close enough."

"Okay... do you know how to get to the castle?"

"Sure! You go right through that opening across from you! Although, from there I'm unsure. I'm just a worm, after all."

Ranma was confused. "What opening? There's nothing but a wall there!"

"Of course there is! Just try walking through it!"

Blink. "What?"

"Go on, then. You can't trust your eyes in this place; nothing is what it seems to be, so you can't take anything for granted!"

"Like the fairies outside?"

"Exactly!"

Ranma got up and walked straight to the wall, and found that it was only an optical illusion. "Hey, thanks!" Ranma turned left.

"WAIT!"

"What?"

"Don't go that way. NEVER go that way!"

"Oh, okay." Ranma headed in the opposite direction.

"Poor kid," muttered the worm. "Can't even tell when he's being lied to."

* * *

"Hey Boss, the boy finally made it out of the Corridor of Insanity!" said one of the taller goblins. "Mirk the worm just told me!" 

"In less than an hour," mused Jareth. "Impressive."

"Hear that Smaer? You owe me lunch!" said a small goblin.

"BLOODY FIGS!" cursed Smaer, a much larger goblin.

"Let's see if he makes it to the Liars' Doors," suggested Jareth. He pulled out one of his crystal spheres to be used as a scrying sphere.

"Twelve pieces on the left door!"

"I'll bet my chicken on the right!"

"Put me down for seven pieces on the right!"

A goblin bookie was keeping track of the bets.

"I bet he takes more than half an hour to make a guess when he gets there!"

"I'll take that bet! Loser buys dinner!"

"Smaer, with your luck..."

"Don't even think of finishing that sentence!"

"Too late, he already jinxed it."

"ORC'S FANGS!"

"Watch your mouth!" yelled an elderly goblin, before smacking Smaer in the head with a cane.

* * *

"What the..." said Ranma, as he stared at a pair of doors with a shield in front of each, and a goblin head sticking out of the top and the bottom. "That was a dead-end just a moment ago!" 

"No, that's the dead-end behind you!" retorted one of the goblins.

"The stupid thing keeps changing!" Ranma wished he could punch through walls already.

"Well, there's only two ways to go now."

"One of the doors leads to the castle..."

"... and the other leads to..."

The other three then said "Dun dun duuuunnn!"

"... certain doom!"

"So which is which?"

"You can't ask us," said one of the bottom goblins. "We don't know!"

"But they do!" said the other bottom goblin.

"Okay, I'll ask them."

"No good. You're allowed to ask only one of us!"

"One of us tells the truth and the other always lies. He be the liar."

"What a lie! I be the one who tells the truth!"

They soon got into a shouting match.

"URUSAI!" shouted Ranma. They shut up. Ranma pointed at one of the bottom goblins. "You! Which of the top ones is the liar, or do they both lie?"

"Uh... what are we supposed to do in this situation?"

"I don't know!" exclaimed the other bottom goblin. "I guess you'd just better tell him!"

"Okay... they both lie."

The top two both muttered the word "traitor."

"I'm better off just picking a door at random," mused Ranma.

* * *

"Wow, he solved it already!" 

"Elf fodder! I owe Smaer dinner!"

"OH YEAH! I'M NOT A BAD LUCK MAGNET!" In his celebration, Smaer tripped over another goblin and went out the window.

CRACK! One of the goblins looked outside. "I don't think his neck is supposed to bend like that..."

"I guess I no longer owe him dinner!"

"That jerk! He died before buying me lunch!"

"Quiet!" commanded Jareth. "He's going to pick a door."

* * *

"I choose... LEFT!"

* * *

Many goblins could be heard celebrating or cursing as the bookie distributed the winnings. 

_He's learning, it seems,_ thought Jareth. _He's using chaos in the form of random chance to try and make it through. If he chose right, he'd have gone down one of the Shafts of Hands and from there into an oubliette. Hopefully he remembers to continue to do so._

"What now, Boss? Seems as though he's in the clear for the moment."

"Send a Lancer into the area - a blue one - I want to see what he has in terms of combat skill. Oh, and contact the dwarf - it looks as though the boy isn't going to end up in the oubliette."

* * *

After randomly choosing a door, Ranma felt something pull at him. He felt stronger for it too. Little did Ranma know that it was his personal chaos nexus beginning to awaken in response to being in the Labyrinth. 

Currently, Ranma was passing through a garden-like area with a maze of hedges rather than stone walls. Suddenly, something rounded the corner ahead of him. It was a goblin riding some sort of strange creature. The goblin was wearing blue armor and had a lance. Ranma dropped into a ready stance as the goblin lowered its lance so that it was parallel to the ground. All at once the creature charged, its speed surprising the young martial artist. However, Ranma was able to dodge the initial charge and jumped at the goblin's head. The goblin quickly let go of the back of its mount's head and caught Ranma's fist, and immediately tossed the boy aside into a more open part of the garden. As Ranma attempted to get back up, the goblin spun its mount around and hit Ranma in the ribs with the flat of his lance, knocking Ranma over several hedges. Getting up, Ranma realized something.

"Wait a minute..." He tried jumping over the hedges to get back to the Lancer, but he hit the invisible barrier again. "What the...?"

He didn't have time to contemplate as the Lancer had found him again and was charging him. Ranma jumped over the attack and snap-kicked the goblin's head, right in the visor of its helmet. Ranma landed behind it and turned around. Ranma was surprised when the goblin was unfazed by the attack. It turned its mount again and raised its lance into the air. The Lancer then tried to beat Ranma over the head with the flat of the lance as it slowly advanced. Ranma was hard-pressed to dodge. Then Ranma had an idea.

"Saotome School of Anything Goes Final Technique!" The goblin paused its attack and let its mount's head go again, in preparation for an attack. Ranma ran up to it and then quickly turned around and sped off while yelling "Run Away!"

The goblin facefaulted while its mount sweatdropped.

* * *

Back at the castle, Jareth also sweatdropped while many of the other goblins laughed at Ranma's "final technique". 

"Well, he's fairly good for a six-year-old boy," mused the Goblin King. "He seems to also know when to employ that 'technique'."

"Hey Boss, he's making great time! He's still got nine hours and eight minutes left!"

* * *

Ranma was still in the garden part of the Labyrinth but he was definitely lost. Suddenly, Ranma saw a familiar face coming out of a giant vase. 

"Hogwart! What're you doing here?"

"It's Hoggle! And I was waiting in an oubliette in case you screwed up at the Liars' Doors and ended up inside of it!"

"What's an oubliette?"

"It's a place where you put people to forget about them. The Labyrinth's full of them."

"Ah, well... I fought this guy in blue armor with a lance, but I had to run away and now I'm lost."

"You fought a Blue Lancer?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"The Lancers are elite warriors, but the blue ones are the least skilled. Anyway, you said you were lost?"

"Yup."

"Well, I happen to know a shortcut out of the whole Labyrinth!"

"Nuh-uh! I've gone too far to give up now!"

"Well, too bad! If you don't want my help, I'll just go elsewhere!"

Ranma suddenly had an idea. Using the pick pocketing skills his father taught him (using a lead pipe as negative reinforcement), he stole the jewels and trinkets off of Hoggle's belt.

"HEY! Those are MINE! Give them back!" Ranma was running around the area as Hoggle chased him. "Those are MY rightful property! It's not fair!"

"Well, too bad! If you want these back, you'll guide me to the castle!"

* * *

End Chapter One. 

Next Chapter: Talking hats, yetis, foxes, and rocks.

Author's Notes

This idea came to me after I watched Jim Henson's "Labyrinth". And the stupid idea wouldn't leave me alone!

Anyway, as the movie leaves so many things unexplained, and not all of the Labyrinth was shown in the movie, I can make up whatever I want to and give all sorts of explanations and whatnot.

Yup. No Neko-Ken for Ranma. As hilarious as it is, I have other plans.

Thank-you's go out to MagusNecromancer and FlyGod for prereading this.

I'm updating this today (October 31, 2007) rather than tomorrow simply because I won't be able to have access to the internet again until Monday. So this is my first update for November. That's right, I said FIRST!


	2. Fire and Bog

Goblins' Fist

by Lord Dragon Claw

Disclaimer: Not responsible for... well, for anything really.

Chapter Two: Fire and Bog

* * *

Exhausted, Hoggle sat down. That human boy Ranma was a real piece of work! He had endurance, he had energy, and he was very spiteful. Hoggle simply couldn't catch him. 

As Hoggle caught his breath, an old goblin walked by and sat down on a chair near the vase. The chair was made of books made from stone. The goblin had on his head a hat that had a head resembling a chicken or peacock on the top of it.

"Excuse me," asked Ranma. "Do you know a shortcut to the castle?"

"What?" asked the old goblin. "Well, well, well. What have we here? A small boy and Horserattle."

"It's Hoggle!"

"Well," began Ranma. "Can you help me to the Goblin City?"

"If he can remember the way there!" chimed in the hat.

"Quiet!" shouted the old coot to his hat. "Sometimes, young man, the way forward is sometimes the way back."

"Would you listen to this rubbish?" said the hat again.

"SHUT UP!"

"Alright! Sheesh!"

"Okay?"

"Okay!"

"Alright..."

"Alright!"

"Are you finished?"

There was a pause, and as the old goblin was about to speak again, his hat spoke up. "Yes."

Glancing upwards angrily, the old goblin continued.

"At times it may seem that we aren't getting anywhere when in fact..."

"We are!" interrupted the hat.

"... we are," grunted the old goblin angrily.

"Well that was helpful," stated Hoggle sarcastically.

They then heard snoring coming from the old goblin.

"Well... that's your luck," stated the hat. One of the old goblin's hands came forward holding a small collections box. "Please leave a contribution in the little box."

Raising his eyebrow, Ranma reached for Hoggle's trinkets.

"Don't you dare!" exclaimed the half-dwarf.

Ranma simply stuck out his tongue and reached into his pocket. He found a five yen coin in it. He placed the coin into the box as the old coot continued to snore.

"Thank you!" said the hat cheerily.

"You didn't have to give him that," said Hoggle as he and Ranma left. "He didn't tell you anything."

As the two of them left earshot, the hat started talking again.

"Well there go a couple of fine suckers!" Glancing down, the hat sweatdropped as he realized the old man really **was** asleep. "Ugh. It's so stimulating being your hat!"

* * *

Ranma and Hoggle continued through the Labyrinth. 

"So Hissyfit..."

"Hoggle."

"Whatever. Why do you obey Jareth's orders? You don't seem to like him very much."

"No one actually likes King Jareth. He's also a powerful goblin wizard and quite frankly, he scares me."

Suddenly, they heard a loud and booming cry coming from just around the next corner. Hoggle jumped nearly three feet in the air at the sound. Hoggle turned around and ran away.

"HIGGINS! Stupid chicken! Well, I'm going to check it out."

As the thundering cries continued to ring out, Ranma peered around the corner and saw seven goblins in full body armor tormenting some large beast that had been tied so that he hung upside down. Their instruments of torture? A long stick with a little blind creature that was mostly mouth and the mouth was mostly fangs.

"How do you like our bitesticks? You stupid yeti!" The goblin then pressed his bitestick up to the center of the yeti's back, eliciting another booming cry.

"If only I had some kind of projectile..." mused Ranma. Then, as another cry pierced the air, a pair of rocks rolled past Ranma's foot. Noticing this, he picked them both up.

Not caring where the rocks came from, Ranma took aim and threw one of them, hitting a goblin's faceplate so that his whole helmet spun around on his head. Confused, the goblin also spun around, as if trying to follow his helmet. His bitestick came in contact with another goblin's rear end.

"OW!" he screamed. "Why you bite me!?"

"Sorry! I can't see!"

Approving of the effect, Ranma let loose the other rock, clocking another goblin in the faceplate. This move yielded a similar result, only that now the goblins were accidentally knocking each other's helmets sideways, blinding the whole unit except for one. The one who wasn't blinded was a new recruit and he, being as panicky as new recruits can be, assumed the worst.

"WE'RE UNDER ATTACK! RETREAT!!"

His hysteria was instantly contagious, and all the goblins ran off into the Labyrinth, tripping over each other. One goblin allowed his bitestick to bite another goblin, eliciting a yelp. Another pair of blinded goblins ran into each other.

* * *

Back at the castle, many goblins were laughing their heads off. 

_Looks like I'll need to drill better discipline into my Bitestick Squads,_ mused Jareth.

* * *

Ranma approached the yeti, and it growled at him. 

"Quiet!" commanded Ranma.

"Huh?" said the yeti.

"That's no way to treat the person who just saved your butt! Don't you want down?"

"Ludo down!"

"So that's your name? You seem like a big teddy bear or something... I'll get you down if you promise not to hurt me."

"Ludo promise!"

"Alright, one moment." Ranma headed over to where the rope was tied to a root of the same tree that Ludo was hanging from. It was a rather simple knot compared to the ones he usually found on his father when the authorities in small villages had caught him. Ranma untied it quickly. Then he realized the mistake.

THUD! Ludo cried out again.

"Ack! Sorry! Are you okay?"

"Ludo fine..."

"That's good."

"What name?"

"My name? I am Ranma."

"Ranma... Ranma friend!"

Ludo stood up. Even hunched over, he was about eight feet tall. His muscular arms ended in three-fingered hands. His brown fur was dirty and matted with blood from quickly healing wounds. Other than that, he seemed okay.

Ludo reached for Ranma as if to hug him.

"Hold it!" commanded Ranma. Ludo stopped.

"What?"

"Do you know how to get to the Goblin City?"

Ludo looked around, and then faced Ranma. "No."

"You also don't know," sighed Ranma. "I wish Hodgepodge hadn't run off like that. Oh well. Ludo?"

"Yeah?"

"Could I ride on your shoulders? I've been walking all day..."

"Okay!"

This surprised Ranma. He thought that Ludo would just say no, like his father always did.

* * *

Jareth was intrigued. Ranma had chosen to make allies with the yeti, just like Sarah would have. Jareth wondered what else Ranma might do the same as the girl. 

He had to divert his attention away from Ranma when Hrekkin tugged on his pant leg.

"What is it?"

"Well, Sire, the Fire Gang has ripped apart yet another messenger while 'playing' with him."

"Thank you, Hrekkin." Jareth said this with a professional air. He tossed the diminutive goblin a gold coin for his trouble.

_I hope Ranma doesn't go through the right door at the upcoming fork,_ thought Jareth. _The Fire Gang reside beyond it._

* * *

Ludo carried Ranma a little deeper into the Labyrinth, where they came upon two doors with metal door knockers that looked like faces. 

"Hey Ludo," began the young but surprisingly smart boy. "Which of these would you choose?"

"Hmm..." grunted the yeti.

"It's impolite to stare!" yelled the left knocker, who had his ring in his ears.

"Sorry," said Ranma.

"What?"

Then the right knocker mumbled something that was indecipherable due to the fact that his ring was in his mouth.

"One moment, I can't understand you!" Ranma hopped off of Ludo's shoulders and pulled the ring from the knocker's mouth.

"Ahh! Oh yeah! It feels so good to finally have that thing out of my mouth!"

"What were you saying?"

"I said 'don't bother talking to him; he's as deaf as a post.'"

"Mumble mumble mumble," began the other knocker. "You make such a wonderful conversationalist!"

"You can talk! All you do is moan!"

"Nope. Can't hear you."

"So, do you know what's behind the doors?" asked Ranma.

"Search me; we're only the knockers!" He chuckled at his own joke.

"How do you open the doors then?"

"What?"

"Knock, and the door shall be opened to you."

"Ah. Well, open up then!"

"No way!"

"Open!"

"Uh-uh!"

"So he doesn't want his ring back in his mouth, eh? Can't say I blame him."

Ranma thought about it for a moment.

"Ludo, plug his nose."

Ludo reached over Ranma's head and held the knocker's nose shut. Unable to breathe, the knocker eventually had to open his mouth. When he did, Ranma quickly inserted the ring while Ludo let go of his nose. Ranma knocked twice and the door creaked open.

"Sorry about that."

"Ith's u-key; I'm uth'd do it," mumbled the knocker.

Ranma and Ludo entered the open door into a forest.

* * *

"HAH! Pay up!" exclaimed a rather small goblin. 

"Shut your dung hole, Dobol!" replied Hrekkin.

Jareth remembered Dobol from when he was a lot younger. He had always hated the little goblin as he was much more annoying and took pleasure in seeing Jareth angry. Dobol seemed to resent humans, even former humans like Jareth.

"So," began Dobol with a sneer. "Who wants to say that the boy will last longer than two minutes against the Fire Gang?"

That pissed Jareth off. He took another crystal sphere from his chaos aura and flicked it above Dobol's head where it transformed into a three ton weight. It landed with a splat. The room was then filled with roaring laughter.

"I guess I don't have to pay him after all," mused Hrekkin. He then realized that Jareth was concerned about the boy. Fearing for his safety, he decided to keep this revelation to himself.

* * *

"I can't believe that you, a big yeti, are afraid," said Ranma. 

"Yeah..." said Ludo sheepishly.

"Come on, Ludo! There is absolutely nothing to be afraid of!"

Just as Ranma finished the sentence, Ludo fell through a trap door.

"Ludo?" He turned around. "Hey? Where are you?"

* * *

Hoggle stopped to catch his breath. He'd been running from whatever monster it was that Ranma went to face. Hoggle would miss his jewelry, but he still had his life. 

Just as he looked upwards to begin moving again, he saw Jareth standing right in front of him.

"Oh, h-hello s-s-sire!"

"You'd better get back to Ranma, Hoyle," began the Goblin King. He waited to see if Hoggle would correct him. Hoggle was too scared to do so. "He's going to meet the Fire Gang in a few moments. It would be a terrible setback for him to be ripped apart. On top of that, if he dies I'm going to dump you head-first into the Bog of Eternal Stench. Do we have an understanding?"

"Y-yes!"

"Then get moving!"

* * *

Ranma came into a clearing when he heard music start up around him. Several wild-looking goblins leapt from the trees and bushes and began dancing. They were principally red and orange in color, with fur around their faces and shoulders, on their wrists and ankles, and at their loins and the tips of their tails. They also had feathers framing their faces. 

"What do you want?" asked Ranma warily.

"We just want to show you a good time!" said the strange goblin closest to Ranma.

Then they began to sing.

_When the sun goes down (when the sun goes down)  
And the bats are back to bed (and the bats are back)_

One of them shook his hand over a fire pit and it ignited the wood within.

_The brothers come 'round (the brothers come 'round)  
I get out of my dirty bed (my dirty bed)  
I shake my pretty little head (I shake my pretty little head)  
Tap my pretty little feet (tap my pretty little feet)  
Feeling brighter than sunlight (oh)  
Louder than thunder (oh)  
Bouncing like a yo-yo, wooh (oh)_

_Don't got no problems (no problems)  
Ain't got no suitcase (no suitcase)  
Ain't got no clothes to worry about (no clothes to worry about)  
Ain't got no real estate or jewelry or gold mines to hang me up._

One of them pulled his eyes out of his head and rolled them on the ground.

"Woah, snake eyes!" exclaimed another goblin.

_I just throw in my hand (throw in my hand)_

One of them literally removed his hand from his wrist while the goblin who removed his eyes swallowed them and they rolled back into their sockets.

_With the chilliest bunch in the land (in the land)  
They don't look much (oh)  
They sure chilly chilly (oh)  
They positively glow glow, huh (oh)_

One of them removed his head and traded it with the hand that the other one had removed. He put the hand on his shoulders while the other put the head on his wrist. The whole group of them laughed.

_Chilly down with the Fire Gang  
Think small with the Fire Gang _"It's the only way!"_  
Bad hep with the Fire Gang _"A smile a day keeps the doctor away!"_  
When your thing gets wild  
Chilly down_

Ranma was seriously getting weirded out by their antics.

_Chilly down with the Fire Gang _"Hey, I'm a wild child!"  
_Act tall with the Fire Gang_

One of them stretched his body so that he was much taller. "Whoo! Walk tall!"

_Good times, bad food_ "Yeah!"  
_When your thing gets wild  
Chilly down, chilly down_

A pair of them combined their bodies so that they looked like a large bird.

_Drive you crazy, really lazy, eye rollin', funky strollin', ball playin'  
Hip swayin', trouble makin', booty shakin', tripping, passing, jumping  
Bouncing, drivin', stylin', creeping, pouncing, shoutin', screamin'  
Double dealin', rockin', rollin', and a reelin'  
With the mackin' sex appealin'.  
Can you dig our groovy feelin'?_

One of them played golf with his head, using his own leg as a club.

_So when things get too tough (get too tough)  
And your chin is dragging on the ground (dragging on the ground)  
And even down looks up (down looks up)  
Bad luck heh heh,_

One of them had reduced himself to just his arms attached to his head.

_We can show you a good time (show you a good time)  
And we don't charge nothin' (nothin' at all)  
Just strut your nasty stuff,  
Wiggle in the middle yeh  
Get the town talkin', Fire Gang_

One had switched his arms and legs around.

_Chilly down with the Fire Gang (think small)  
Think small with the Fire Gang  
Bad hep with the Fire Gang_ "Hey, listen up!"  
_When your thing gets wild  
Chilly down_

One of them jumped on Ranma and grabbed his head.

_Chilly down with the Fire Gang_ "Hey! His head won't come off!"  
_Think small with the Fire Gang_ "Let go! Get off!"  
_Good times, bad food_ "Come on! Try again!"  
_When your thing gets wild_ "Go away!"  
_Chilly down_ "Don't you want to be like us?"

Ranma punched the one on his back. Shocked, he let go.

_Chilly down with the Fire Gang_ "Hey! That's against the rules!"  
_Think small with the Fire Gang_ "Yeah, that's not how the game is played!"  
_Bad hep with the Fire Gang_ "It is how to play my new game!"  
_When yo..._

The music stopped (with the sound of the needle being quickly pulled across a record like in cartoons) and all the members of the Fire Gang stopped moving. They stared at the boy with curious eyes.

"New game?" asked one of the wild goblins. "No one's taught us a new game before!"

"Y-yeah," began Ranma, thinking quickly. "The rules are simple. Anyone may punch or kick someone on the opposite team. I am one team and the rest of you are the other. Since it is me verses the rest of you, you're not allowed to pull my body apart, though I am allowed to pull you guys apart. Ready?"

The boy got into a fighting stance.

"Ready!" said all the members of the Fire Gang.

"Begin!"

* * *

Jareth was surprised. The boy actually survived his encounter with the Fire Gang and would survive subsequent encounters with them. The rest of the room was as surprised and quiet as Jareth. Except for the chickens. 

_How could it have been that simple?_ wondered Jareth. _Seems Ranma has more potential than I thought._

* * *

The Fire Gang had lots of energy and potential for mayhem, as Ranma discovered. They would rip each others' limbs off to try and beat him with them. They would throw their heads at him. They were tenacious. 

Soon, being the six-year-old that he was, Ranma began to tire. He decided to retreat. He didn't get far until he was cornered.

Suddenly, a rope dropped down, with Hoggle at the top.

"Ranma! Hurry!"

He scrambled up the rope, calling to the Fire Gang as he went.

"The game's over for now, guys! We'll play again later!"

"What are we supposed to do until then?"

"Practice! On each other!"

"Okay!"

They began ripping their limbs off and beating each other with them.

* * *

"Hey Goggles!" 

"Hoggle."

"Right. Thanks for getting me out of there. I was getting tired."

Then, they heard Ludo's bellowing again, from over the wall on their left.

"GAH!" screamed Hoggle, as he attempted to run. Ranma caught him though.

"Stupid chicken! It's only Ludo."

"Ludo?"

"Yeah, he's a yeti."

"Yetis and goblins don't get along..."

"Stop whining. I wonder how we get to him..."

Suddenly, they both fell through a trap door.

* * *

Jareth had to slap his forehead. Hoggle hadn't been paying attention and they both had fallen through a trap door to the Bog of Eternal Stench. What was he to do if his potential heir smelled bad forever?

* * *

Hoggle managed to grab hold of the ledge as he and Ranma shot out of the chute that the trap door had dropped them into. Ranma managed to grab hold of a root. They were both dangling above a very smelly swamp. 

"GAH! What is that horrible smell!?"

"It's the Bog of Eternal Stench!"

Ranma pulled himself up. "It smells like... like..."

"Who cares what it smells like!? Help me!"

Ranma helped Hoggle up and onto the ledge.

"So Chicken Wings..."

"Oh come on! That doesn't sound anything like Hoggle!"

"Whatever. Why did you come back to help me?"

"King Jareth's orders. The Fire Gang is one of the most dangerous and uncontrollable types of goblin."

"I kind of figured that out. But if they think that what you want them to do is a game, they'll do it happily. If you can figure out how to make them play the game the way you want to, they are easily manipulated."

"That's impossible! King Jareth has never figured that out!"

Suddenly, the ledge gave out and they both plummeted downwards... right onto Ludo. The poor yeti bellowed in pain from the stone pieces that hit him on the back and head. He sat down and put his arms above him to shield from further debris.

"Ludo!"

"Ranma!"

"Wait... where's Hopscotch?"

They heard some mumbling coming from under Ludo. He stood up and Hoggle scrambled out from under him.

"For the last time: it's 'Hoggle'! GAH! YETI!"

"Shut it, Hubble! This is Ludo."

"Smell bad!" exclaimed the yeti.

"You're right. Let's get out of here."

"Careful," warned Hoggle. "Set so much as a toe into the Bog and you'll smell bad forever!"

"Couldn't you just amputate the toe?"

"Good point, but Jareth sometimes dumps creatures he doesn't like head first into the Bog."

"I see."

They soon came to a bridge made of wood, sticks, and rope. As they approached, a creature leapt out from behind a boulder. It looked kind of like a cross between a squirrel and a fox. It wore clothing that would have been appropriate in King Henry VIII's court. He also held a rod in his gauntleted hands. He had a patch over his left eye.

"Halt! None shall pass!"

"Out of the way, small fry!" threatened Hoggle.

The fox-thing hit the half-dwarf in between the eyes with his rod.

"I, Sir Didymus, shant move for no man!"

"How about for a boy?" asked Ranma.

"Um... Never had a boy try to cross before..."

Ranma glanced at Ludo and they made brief eye contact. Ludo seemed to understand Ranma's meaning. The yeti grabbed a tree branch and swung it at the diminutive creature. Didymus dodged.

"Such foul tactics shall never work on me! Ye hath met thy match! GAH! RIGHT IN MY GOOD EYE!"

As Didymus was busy boasting, Ranma had punched the stupid fox-thing in the eye. Hoggle took this opportunity to throw the screaming fox into the water. Just as they were about to cross the bridge, Didymus leapt out of the water into their path.

"How darest thou!? Dost thou thinkest that dunking me in the swamp shall stop me? Thou art mad!"

"You do realize that you'll smell bad forever, don't you?" asked Ranma.

"What are you talking about? I've never smelled better!"

"You lost your ridiculous accent."

"CURSES! OW!"

Ludo smashed his branch down on the annoying fox, knocking him out.

"Thank you Ludo. Let's go!"

Ranma began walking across the bridge. But then it began to give out. Ranma leapt across the remaining distance before it collapsed.

"Sorry guys. I don't see another way across."

Ludo began howling, causing Hoggle to cover his ears. Rocks began rolling into the Bog, creating a bridge of stepping stones across the water.

"You can summon rocks?" asked Hoggle.

"Sure. Rocks friends!"

They then crossed to join Ranma.

* * *

Jareth looked at the clock. Only six hours and forty-three minutes left. 

_Ranma certainly works fast!_

The other goblins were also impressed. If all went well, they would arrive at the gates to the Goblin City in less than half an hour.

* * *

Sir Didymus woke up twelve hours later... 

"Ow... What happened last night? I have such a hangover!"

Right. Let him believe what he wants to.

* * *

End Chapter Two. 

Next Chapter: The City, the Castle, and the Impossibility Room.

Author's Notes

When I saw Ezlo from the game _Zelda: the Minish Cap_, I was immediately reminded of the old coot from "Labyrinth" with the talking hat. Especially since both hats' heads were birds' heads.

Yeah yeah. I followed the movie a bit more closely during the first half of the chapter, but that's because I wanted Ranma to meet the Fire Gang. Imagine, the Fire Gang with martial arts training...

Poor Hoggle; no one seems to be able to remember his name. Though Jareth seems to do it on purpose.

I checked my DVD in the scene selections. It in fact is Ludo, not Bludo or Bluto.

There's a reason why I didn't have Sir Didymus join the group. He annoys Ranma. Besides, I never did like the stupid fox. He was amusing at times, but he is just too stupid. Also, this is a little foreshadowing for what is going to happen in Nerima...

I wonder... Should I have Ranma meet the Junk Lady in the next chapter or should I have him meet her in subsequent visits to the Labyrinth?

I am giving thanks to my new prereader Cylon One for being more prompt than MagusNecromancer or FlyGod.

Well, Merry Christmas! Or whatever holiday you're celebrating. I'm celebrating Christmas, so there! No Christmas special this year... maybe next year?


	3. Of Escher and Amazons

Goblins' Fist

by Lord Dragon Claw

Disclaimer: Careful when a Cannoneer fires his cannon. You definitely don't want to stand in front of it.

Chapter Three: Of Escher and Amazons

* * *

Ranma and Hoggle were riding atop Ludo who was barreling through the trash heap located just outside the Goblin City, knocking away the garbage collectors who screamed goblin profanities at them. After making it out of the trash, they almost ran straight into the outpost gate. Ranma jumped down, snuck past the sleeping guard, and picked the lock on the door. It easily opened. The three of them snuck inside only to have the door slam shut behind them. In front of them, the main gate swung closed, trapping them inside. The front of the door looked like a mechanical monstrosity.

A mechanical monstrosity that stepped away from the door and picked up a gigantic battle axe.

"The Gaterator!" exclaimed Hoggle.

* * *

"They've made it to the Gaterator," stated Jareth, causing a number of goblins to either cheer or curse due to whether or not they won their bets.

* * *

As the Gaterator swung its battle axe, Ranma jumped to avoid it. He landed on the arm of the mechanical monster, and ran up it. He delivered a powerful kick to the head, knocking it off, revealing a winged-goblin at the controls. Ranma sneered at the goblin and its eyes went wide. The boy grabbed the goblin's head and bashed it against the control panel several times, causing it to spark and crackle.

Ranma jumped down as the winged-goblin flew away in a drunken manner. Hoggle, Ludo, and Ranma hid behind one of the battlements as the Gaterator exploded.

* * *

Jareth was impressed.

"I want all of you to arms!" declared the Goblin King. "Try to impede his progress! I want to see how he handles a full-scale battle!"

Cheers and battle cries filled the room as the disgusting little creatures prepared for a fight.

"Oh, Taspe, I have a special assignment for you."

* * *

Ranma and co. walked through the seemingly deserted Goblin City. The only things they saw were chickens. And houses. And street signs. And windows. And... well, you get the picture.

As they neared the town square a battle horn blared. Lancers of various colors appeared in their path. Goblin Gun Platforms began marching into view. Cannoneers and Cannonballs marched onto the scene. As well as an entire army of Goblin Regulars.

"Hey, Ludo?" asked Ranma nervously.

"Yeah?" answered the yeti.

"Think you can summon up some rocks to help us with this battle?"

"Yeah."

"In the meantime... RUN AWAY!"

"AGREED!!" said Hoggle.

Cannons and Goblin Gun Platforms began firing while the Lancers charged. The Regulars spread out to cut off any escape routes.

The goblins managed to trap Hoggle, Ludo, and Ranma inside of a building, but then Ludo began howling once he broke his head through the roof.

Stone after stone leapt over the walls to the Goblin City while many more broke through the gate. The rocks and boulders bowled over many goblins while the Gun Platforms and canons were smashed by much larger stones.

In the chaos following the attack of the rocks, the half-dwarf, yeti, and six-year-old boy made their way to the castle. In front of the door stood a single goblin of immense size.

"I am Taspe, guardian of the Final Gate. Get past me and get into the Impossibility Room, and you will have succeeded. Fail, and I get to eat your head."

Taspe then charged at Ranma, who jumped out of the way; however, Ludo received a blow that felt like a battering ram. Hoggle ran for cover.

Ranma managed a running jump and kicked Taspe in the side of the head. It knocked the rather large (read: fat AND tall) goblin off balance. While still in the air, Ranma capitalized on his advantage and twisted in the air to deliver a spin kick in the same spot as before. This sent Taspe tumbling down the slope back to the city.

Taspe sat up and shook off his dizziness.

"You can't defeat me!" he called back to Ranma. "I am all but invincible and I will grind you into a paste once I get back up there!"

Then, a cannon fired one of the Cannonballs, who hit Taspe in the head, killing him.

"Whoops," said the Cannonball. "Well, at least I hit SOMETHING."

* * *

Ranma looked this way and that, searching for something that would lead him from the throne room to the Impossibility Room.

"Hey, Ranma?"

"What is it, Hogbreath?"

"Look at this."

There was a door, with a sign on it. The sign read "Impossibility Room".

"Why am I not surprised?"

* * *

"Good job, Ranma!" Jareth's voice spoke out from everywhere in the room. "You have made it to the Impossibility Room! This is where true chaos lies, and the principles you learn here are what the Goblins' Fist fighting style is based off of."

Ranma was truly confused. He didn't know which way was up or down.

"I see you're confused," continued the Goblin King. "This room was what M. C. Escher dreamed about before he painted the painting that sealed his career as an artist."

"Who's Escher?"

"How foolish of me! Of course you don't know! Your pathetic excuse for a father should be dunked in the Bog of Eternal Stench for not teaching you these important little bits of tid!"

"Jareth? Training?"

"But of course! In the remaining four hours and fifty-two minutes you have remaining, you must find me. Begin!"

Ranma thought about it for a second, and then leapt off of the platform he was standing on. Gravity shifted twenty times before he again landed. Right in front of Jareth.

"Done!" the child happily exclaimed.

"Wha- but how did you do that!?"

"'This is where true chaos lies'. By throwing myself into the middle of it, it spat me back out at random. Considering the luck I've had on my way here, I have succeeded whenever I trusted chaos. That's how I found you!"

_Ingenious little brat,_ mused Jareth. _He's already figured out how to use chaos magic!_

"Well, I suppose it is time for you to learn the forms of the goblins' fighting styles; they have no real forms save for vague imitations of other fighting styles. This is what makes goblins so deadly: they seem to have no discipline and therefore are underestimated."

* * *

Years later, somewhere in China...

A sixteen-year-old boy with wild white hair (the back portion had been tied into a pigtail) and his balding, fat, nearsighted, idiotic father were traveling to what the old man had described as a "Legendary Training Ground". The boy was Ranma, who had learned a great deal about the Goblins' Fist style. He learned that it wasn't just a fighting style so much as it was a way of practicing magic. He returned to the Labyrinth every fortnight for an additional thirteen hours of training, which the Goblins' Fist training manual explained on one of the pages that Genma didn't read until after initiating the ritual.

Despite all of his father Genma's efforts to make Ranma as Chauvinistic as possible, the King-in-training had a healthy respect for women. Kind of hard for the balding man to poison Ranma's mind when Jareth had part of each of the boy's visits be spent with Aanaq, a goblin matron.

In order to be a goblin matron, you have to be smart and clever in order to survive the antics of goblin children, what with their constant attempts to poison, stab in the back, and gouge out the eyes of anybody nearby. On top of that, matrons must be physically strong to deal with the way the little brats tend to mob authority figures with their sheer numbers (and to survive any attempt on their lives that they couldn't prevent). And a matron must be fast in order to catch all the little buggers and skilled enough to put them to sleep for naptime without bashing their skulls in (not to mention all the patience required to not just kill them all off).

So, not only did Ranma learn that women were just as strong as, if not stronger than, men but he also learned that children were usually little monsters when they get out of control, and as adults they usually get worse. Case-in-point: Genma, Ranma's biological father. This made Ranma naturally suspicious and paranoid of just about everyone. The only people whom he really trusted were Huggle (or whatever his name was), Ludo, and Jareth. Even though Jareth did sometimes put him through nearly suicidal training routines (much like a certain bespectacled bald man), Jareth told him it was to improve his danger senses because with the responsibilities Jareth wished to bestow upon Ranma came the near-constant death-threats and assassination attempts. So whatever position Jareth wanted to give to Ranma would be dangerous and deadly so the boy was being prepared for it; not that the pig-tailed fighting magician cared how perilous a task he was given - he knew that Jareth was trying to provide him with what he needed beforehand and wouldn't give him something to do that he couldn't do. Genma, on the other hand, just assumed that his son would just do it regardless of how prepared the boy was.

But that was neither here nor there.

Ranma had taken to holding four crystal spheres in his left hand (or sometimes in his right) in the shape of a pyramid and constantly shuffling them whenever he was bored or angry. Since his insufferable smirk looked the same regardless, Genma was watching his son out of the corner of his eye. The fat idiot had gained a healthy respect when Ranma was in one of those moods. Especially since he'd seen those spheres do different things. Simply getting hit by one could be fatal because Ranma would embed one of them into a stone with a simple twitch of his fingers and without missing a beat. But if the crystals ever broke (which Genma rightly assumed that the boy could control) weird things happened. Fire, lightning, ice, darkness, dirt, etc. sometimes came out of the shattered sphere. Sometimes people turned into animals or other such and other times animals turned into monsters. Or monsters or other stuff simply appeared out of thin air. Since all the crystal spheres looked identical, Genma was wary of them all. A fact that his son exploited whenever he felt like it.

And since he was bored walking down a path in backwoods China, he felt like messing with his father's head a little, so he pulled out of his pocket four of the spheres and began shuffling them. Genma watched Ranma out of the corner of his eye, searching for any hint of dangerous intent.

They were hiking up a mountain because the training ground was allegedly on the other side. They eventually crossed over the crest of a hill and saw a small valley with a great number of pools each with a pole sticking out of it. There was also a Chinese man sitting near a sign.

The man wore a government outfit for the Chinese army but he seemed to not know much about fighting from the plainly civilian way he held his posture. He waved to them and started rambling in Mandarin.

Genma stepped forward and asked "Is this the training ground known as Jusenkyou?"

"Oh, honorable customers speak Japanese. Not language me good with, but manage. Yes. This Jusenkyou, valley of one thousand cursed springs."

Genma ignored him and leapt atop a pole.

"No! Honorable customer in danger of curse!"

"Come on, boy! Let's get with your training!"

"Be up there in a second, old man!" Ranma turned to the guide. "Curses, huh?"

"Yes. When fall into cursed spring, take form what fall in last. Hot water change back to normal, but cold water transform again."

"... Well, that's not that bad of a curse then."

Ignoring what the guide began to say about how the curses were all horrible and tragic, he pocketed his crystal spheres and leapt atop another pole.

He and Genma began fighting atop the poles. Eventually, he got the better of the old, fat, balding man and knocked him into a spring. Before the guide could respond a panda leapt out of the water and headed straight for Ranma.

Even by this much of a surprise, Ranma would have dodged. But the fact of the matter is that he felt chaos magic take effect when Genma fell into the spring. These two surprises would not have individually broken the pigtailed-boy's concentration, but the combination of the two had stunned the King-in-training enough that Genma managed to knock him into another spring.

Ranma leapt out of the pool onto solid ground, but fell over due to feeling more weight on his front than normal. He sat up and took a quick look down his shirt to see what those mounds were.

_Holy orc's fangs! I've been turned into a girl!_

* * *

Jareth was banging his head on his desk as the other goblins who were watching Ranma burst out laughing.

_He got himself cursed! That idiot! Wait... Jusenkyou? Isn't that the place where Polsek the third Goblin King first harnessed his chaos energies? It is. That was Polsek's prank on humanity, and each Goblin King thereafter has been attempting to make a prank to top his. By getting cursed in one of the springs there, Ranma has doubled his own magical core's chaos! I wonder if he did this on purpose?_

* * *

Genma tried to taunt his... son? All that came out though was a "groft" sound.

"Honorable customers both have curses! Older customer turn into panda when splashed with cold water. Hot water change back, and cold water change again. Younger customer turn into girl with cold and change back with hot. Both lucky not fall in uncursed spring. Instant death and spring become cursed."

"I'm just lucky like that," muttered Ranma. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to beat the tar out of my father. Ta ta!"

Ranma began to chase her father around the valley. Genma leapt past a boy with a leopard-patterned bandana, startling the dark-haired boy. He was going to fall off a cliff overlooking the cursed springs when Ranma caught him by the ankle.

"Well, if it isn't Ryouga?" asked Ranma.

"Excuse me, miss? I don't believe we've met," responded the boy. "I'm looking for Ranma. He's got white hair in a pigtail and I'm on an eternal quest for vengeance against him. Have you seen him?"

"I am Ranma."

"That's impossible," retorted Ryouga. "Do I look stupid to you?"

"Yes. HEY, GUIDE!"

"How honorable customer get up there? Who is new honorable customer?"

"Doesn't matter. What spring is that below us?"

"Uh... Spring of Drowned Piglet."

Ranma let go.

SPLASH!

"Why honorable customer save other customer just to curse him?"

"Save him? I was just insuring he didn't turn into anything useful."

The guide blinked at this. The Japanese were weird people. He grabbed a net and got the poor piglet out of the spring.

* * *

Jareth and all the other goblins watching the heir to the Goblin Throne were laughing their heads off.

* * *

After Ryouga was turned back into a human and Ranma back into a male, the dark-haired boy immediately began yelling.

"SAOTOME RANMA!! PREPARE TO DIE!!"

"Why? Because I whipped you pretty good after waiting FOUR BLOODY DAYS for you to arrive at the empty lot BEHIND YOUR HOUSE!?"

"EVERYTHING IS YOUR FAULT!"

"Oh, you mean all the problems you have? Well, yeah."

Ranma began dodging punches and kicks that Ryouga was sending his way. Genma (in panda form) and the Guide sat off to the side to watch the fight.

"I mean, seriously, your sense of direction problem you already had, but I did make it worse-" Left jab swiftly dodged. "-not to mention all those times I threw you, naked, into the girls' locker room at the all-girls' school a block away from ours-" Right snap kick deftly redirected. "-and all the times I stole all that bread from you at the lunch line-" Right hook caught. This time Ranma began to fight back. "-I don't see why you hate me so much. I simply increased the chaos in your life is all."

He beat the bandana'd boy into the ground.

"So, when's lunch?"

"Uh," the Guide began. "There Amazon village nearby where we get food, maybe."

"They speak Mandarin, don't they?"

"Hai."

Ranma pulled a crystal out of his pocket and swallowed it. A pop was heard and smoke came out of his mouth and ears.

* * *

_A language translation spell as a side effect for putting a mild bomb spell__ down his throat?_ wondered Jareth. _Well, considering his luck, and his healing rate, only _he_ would be able to pull that sort of thing out of chaos._

* * *

Ranma coughed up some blood and smoke.

"Well, lead on!" he said in perfect Mandarin.

The Guide, dumbfounded by what just happened, turned and led a smirking Ranma and a sweating panda towards the Amazon village.

* * *

The Guide was required to bring all people who fell into Jusenkyou to the Amazons first, unless he wanted to be dunked into the Spring of Drowned Rabbit and turned into hassenpfeffer by the psychotic women of the various Amazon tribes. And he decided against bringing the customer known as Ryouga along as he seemed to hate the Ranma customer; he couldn't have them fight in a village of volatile women!

They arrived at the village gates with little fanfare and no incidents other than a light rain shower which triggered Ranma's curse. When they entered the village, the aquatransexual goblin's hearing picked up mutterings of the word "cursed" being used in reference to her and her panda father.

Ranma also noticed a tournament going on between the women of the village. The guide was explaining the tournament to Genma, who had sat down at the buffet table. Ranma took a second to look at the sign next to the table reading "first prize". She thought it incredibly stupid of her father to start eating the food based entirely on the fact that he was hungry. Still, she also sat down next to him and began eating, mostly to enrage whoever won the tournament.

The final match was between a gigantic bear of a woman and a beautiful girl about the age of sixteen (yes, the same age as Ranma). Ranma took note of the lovely purple hair and excellent figure as well as the way she moved - with a predator's grace; most beautiful indeed. Ranma also took note of the fact that this young lady still had some chaos in her very small magical core which could be improved with a simple stay in the Labyrinth. Most interesting.

_Seems chaos and fate are dealing me this hand,_ mused the cursed goblin. _But let's see how goblinish her personality measures up..._

The purple-haired girl was wielding a pair of bonbori, heavy metal maces, against her axe-wielding opponent. She was going for blows to the kidneys, face, and solar plexus to quickly take down the much larger woman. Normally, one would consider these to be low-blows, and Ranma saw it the same, but she admired such whereas most others would shun such behavior.

_It seems as though she lives the goblin way already,_ Ranma considered. _Despite all the false engagements my idiot father has landed me, I hope I can find some way to get engaged to this one..._

Finally, with a bone-shattering kick to the solar plexus, the purple-haired beauty felled her gargantuan opponent and raised her bonbori in triumph to the sounds of the clapping crowd. She then turned around to see a red-headed girl with weird eyebrows and a panda eating her prize. The nerve!

"I challenge you to a fight!" she yelled rather forcefully (in Mandarin, obviously). "Because your pet panda and you have eaten my prize!"

Ranma smirked, earning her further ire from the violette.

"'Pet' panda, huh?" she responded in Mandarin. "That's a good one! Actually, my father, the panda, and I were cursed in Jusenkyou just this morning. But I accept your challenge. If I win, I keep the food and will give it to whomever I please. If I lose, you can have your way with me and I won't resist... Wow, that sounded dirty. Anyway, are we agreed?"

"Yes," stated the violette.

* * *

One of the elders of the Amazon village, Kho Lon, was carefully analyzing the cursed newcomers. The panda, who she could sense was once human, had a great deal of martial arts savvy (that much she could tell from just looking at him). He also appeared to be incredibly stupid.

The other, the girl... was much more complicated. She wasn't really a girl because she had a male's magical core. And those eyebrows reminded her of something... _What's this? The magical core is very much infused with chaos? At her age? Impossible!_ Children lose their chaos as they get older, and her great-great-grandaughter, Xian Pu (the girl who was fighting with the newcomer), had lost almost all of hers already! There is no way someone still had that much chaos in their system... not unless they weren't entirely human! _Or she... no he could be a chaos mage! One of the most dangerous types of magicians out there! And those eyebrows... _She had a nagging feeling that they were important. They appeared to be the same type of eyebrows that goblin changelings had, but goblin changelings always had white hair. That girl, er, guy had red hair.

Kho Lon knew they needed to be cautious around him.

* * *

Ranma was having the time of her life, dodging every attack while still on the log. What was really fun was dodging sideways and standing on the side of the log, parallel to the ground! The looks on the faces of everyone there! Oh what fun!

But soon, the King-in-training bored of this little game and decided to end it. She caught the violette's bonbori (both of them) with her bare hands and redirected them to the sides, throwing the Amazon girl off her balance. She dropped her maces and began windmilling her arms to try and stay on the log, only to have Ranma poke her in the nose. That was the last little bit that pushed her off of the log. She landed on her posterior. Ranma smirked.

The purple-haired girl got up and was going to get onto the log when her great-great-grandmother (standing at only three-foot-seven in height) leapt atop the log. She pointed her six-foot-long cane at Ranma in a threatening manner.

"Who are you?" she asked (in Mandarin).

"Saotome Ranma, cursed male heir to the Saotome School of Anything Goes."

Kho Lon's eyes widened at the mention of "Anything Goes", but she kept her cool.

"Anything else? Such as an extended stay in a magical or chaotic area other than Jusenkyou?"

"You can sense that, huh?" Ranma smirked again. "I see no point in holding back information. I am the Heir to the Goblin Throne. I spent an extended stay in the Labyrinth when I was six."

Kho Lon's face paled and she shivered with barely suppressed fear. GOBLINS!? Oh, she had heard the stories, the legends, the myths about them, but she didn't entirely believe them! To think that a goblin had created Jusenkyou just like the myths said... the revelation that goblins existed in the present time and day shattered her worldview. So much so that she didn't notice until it was too late that Xian Pu had given this boy-turned-girl a kiss. She could hear that the Jusenkyou Guide had thought that it was the Kiss of Death, where a member of the tribe gives someone of the same gender a kiss declaring total war on that person for defeating them in combat, but Kho Lon knew that it was the Kiss of Marriage, where one of the tribe has been beaten by an outsider of the opposite gender and the kiss was a way of staking a claim on the outsider.

The Guide had dragged the panda out of the gates by this time.

"Well," began the part-goblin cursed boy. "Thank you my dear, but we hardly know eachother. But I do have a challenge: chase me; hunt me down and try to capture me. Never give up! One day, we'll talk." The red-head leapt over the entire crowd, twisting this way and that, landing on the walls of the village. "Until a later date, good-bye!"

* * *

The Amazon council was shocked by the revelation of goblins still existing and the fact that Xian Pu had given the Kiss of Marriage to the HEIR of the Goblin Throne. She was sentenced to a cursing in Jusenkyou (much to Kho Lon's chagrin) and a banishment until she could return with the boy who was cursed to become a girl. Kho Lon was forbidden to help - well, for the first six months anyway. If Xian Pu didn't return in that time, her great-great-grandmother was allowed to go help her.

Xian Pu's curse was to turn into a cat, which seemed to fit her personality quite well.

Jareth was impressed by the amount of chaos and confusion his heir left in his wake. He would make a great and powerful Goblin King at this rate!

* * *

End Chapter Three.

Next Chapter: the Tendos.

Author's Notes

It has been a long time since I updated this, yes? Sorry, other stories have been popping up at random. I hope that the extra length makes up for it.

Oh, and you're all getting spoiled! Less than twenty-six hours from the time this shows up, I'll be posting chapter ten of "The Laughing Fox".

Anyone notice the running gags yet? There are two.

Anybody ever hear of Jim C. Hines? He's a bloody genius. He wrote three books in his "Jig the Goblin" series (his debut series): Goblin Quest, Goblin Hero, and Goblin War. All of those are funny, witty, and are all-around well-written. It is from this series that I was inspired to create Aanaq to counter Genma's negative influence.

No. I decided to keep Ranma's and Genma's curses the same. There are reasons for this. As is the reason for Ryouga's curse remaining the same.

You know how Ryouga blames all of his problems on Ranma? I thought: what if pig-boy IS right? What if everything IS Ranma's fault?

Chaos magic works by means of luck and odds. If you force it to do something specific, there will be side-effects that will be more powerful than the intended result. The mistake that chaos mages make is that most of them don't rely on luck and they try to compensate for the side effects, usually resulting in death for the mage. Ranma doesn't make these mistakes.

Yes, Ranma still landed himself Shampoo as a fiancée. He landed her in canonical because of all the chaos in his life. I figured that he would land her sooner if he had more chaos, which he does. But don't worry, he's picking his fiancées based on how goblinish their personalities are.

And those of you who have already read my story "The Pride of the Goblins" know who the other wives will be. Those who don't want to spoil it should just stick to this story.


	4. Nerima

Goblins' Fist

by Lord Dragon Claw

Disclaimer: If you don't want to deal with regular goblins, don't invite them into your home. If you don't want to deal with a goblinish Ranma, run away.

Chapter Four: Nerima

* * *

Ranma felt that the trek back to the Sea of Japan, and the subsequent crossing of it, was fairly boring. Even that Amazonian chick catching up every once in awhile didn't really alleviate the boredom.

Now it was raining. Great. Just great. Everything was fine until Genma had to say that one stinkin' line!

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"So now we have those psycho backwater women on our trail, we're cursed, I'm hungry, and we still have to get to Nerima before we can rest! I don't see what else could possibly go wrong!"

They heard a crack of thunder and felt their forms shift as the rain activated their curses.

"You know what, Pops? I'm going to kick you in the balls now."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Ranma's hair in his female form _had_ indeed started out as red, but it had slowly faded until it was pink. Soon, it would be white. Some sort of side-effect of being part-goblin, or so Jareth said.

Now where to go, what to do? Ranma _could_ follow Genma to Nerima, but would it be worth it? Ranma could also visit the Labyrinth again - he/she always had fun there. Maybe she could play with the Fire Gang again? Maybe move to Los Angeles and start a talk show? Maybe she'd kill her father and frame her brother for it? Well, she'd have to find someone who could pass as her brother. Hmmm....

Before she could contemplate further, she had to duck as the panda swung a stop sign at her head. Genma's second kick to the balls that day ended with him dropping his makeshift bludgeon, which Ranma quickly picked up and rested it on her shoulder.

The bystanders were surprised.

"Well, Pops, you had better start running!" said Ranma with a psychotic grin on her face.

See Genma. See Genma run. Genma runs fast, but not fast enough. Run, Genma! Run!

The panda eventually had to resort to running on all fours to avoid any more cuts on his backside as the temporary pinkette swung the traffic sign so that it would slice through the air. Though awkward at first, the method of running on all fours felt natural and he was able to gain a little headway from his son/daughter.

* * *

_Tendo-san,_

_Arriving August third. Bringing Ranma._

_Saotome Genma_

_PS: Start praying._

Soun was a little confused by the post-script on the postcard from China, but he was elated that his friend was finally returning! And the schools would finally be joined! Oh happy day!

And so he had gathered his daughters together that rainy morning to break to them the good news.

"Oh my!"

"A little old-fashioned, don't you think?"

"But daddy! He'll be a pervert!"

"Now Akane, you don't even know him!"

"Doesn't matter. He's a boy. Boys are perverts."

"Well, though I have to agree that all boys are perverted to some degree, I have met a number of women who are even more perverted than most men - one of them was your mother."

"Feh."

"Anyway, back to the matter at hand - my good training buddy Genma is bringing his son Ranma, and Ranma has been betrothed to one of you since before he was born."

"Is he younger? Younger men are always so immature."

"Is he cute?"

"Does he do martial arts? I already want to pound his face into the tarmac."

Soun paused for a moment to collect his thoughts, but then felt it best to be blunt. "I don't know, but I'm sure he does practice the art."

"Probably just a dumb jock then..."

"Now Nabiki, you can't judge a book by its cover."

"Yeah yeah."

It was at that moment that they heard yelling.

"Oh my! Seems the neighbors are having a martial arts brawl again..."

"Uh," began Nabiki. "No. Seems only one person is yelling. And it seems to be getting louder."

"Come back here, Pops!" They could faintly hear the words that were being yelled. "I'm not going to hurt you! I'm just going to KILL YOU!!"

Akane opened up the side door to potentially ward off whoever it was when a panda literally crashed through the gate. One of the heavy stainless steel doors was still attached to the wall by only one of its hinges, but the other one landed in the koi pond, potentially killing all the fish. The panda seemed dizzy after that, and slowed in its running just before a pink-haired person landed right behind it and slashed the panda's backside with a battered stop sign.

"That was for throwing that trash can in my way!"

The panda collapsed - it seemed it was exhausted, though it might have been from blood loss. As the pinkette brought the sign upwards in an overhead arc, preparing to split the panda's skull, Soun decided to step in (or step out into the rain, as the case was).

"Hey! You trashed my gate and yard!"

The pinkette looked around for a moment, lowering the traffic control device, before turning back to Soun and speaking.

"I'm Saotome Ranma... I suppose I'm sorry about this. I'll fix it later."

"Wait... Ranma!? Oh happy day!"

As Soun moved to hug Ranma, she grabbed Genma by the nape of his neck and some of the fat around his lower back and put the panda between her and Soun, causing the long-haired man to hug the panda.

"Woah! Wait one minute! Who are you!?" demanded Ranma. Soun let the panda go and stepped back a bit.

"I'm Tendo Soun. Welcome to Nerima!"

Ranma moved Genma to the side and set him down. Genma looked over his shoulder at his son/daughter, worried about the suddenly gentle treatment.

"You conniving bastard! It's almost like you planned it this way, but I know you're not smart enough for that. Still, seems like you have some tricks you can teach me, eh Pops?"

Just after the panda sighed in relief, Ranma clocked him with the flat of the stop sign, knocking Genma out (not to mention two meters forward).

"I thought you said he had more to teach you?" asked Akane from the doorway.

"He does. Just not right now."

"Oh my! Can I get you anything?"

"Uh... two cups of boiling water."

Kasumi, the eldest of the three sisters, looked a bit confused, but she still went to the kitchen and put the tea kettle on the stove.

As she left, Ranma turned to Soun.

"Tendo-san. Please help me drag this waste of skin inside."

"Uh... okay."

* * *

Dade the goblin was very nervous. He had been sent by Jareth to invite the Fire Gang to Ranma's next birthday party in November. Apparently, it was going to be big this year; therefore, Jareth had to send out the invitations really early. Dade just wished that Jareth had sent someone else or at least had told him how to avoid getting killed by the Fire Gang like most of the other messengers had done.

The truth of it was, Jareth had simply forgotten to tell Dade. No matter - Dade was expendable anyway.

* * *

After everyone was sitting down, Nabiki was curious and suspicious as to why Ranma's chest was sticking out so far. Before Ranma could say anything, the brunette with her hair at shoulder-length stood up and grasped the pinkette's chest.

Though Ranma felt a somewhat pleasurable sensation, she felt the need to ignore it and ask a question. "What are you doing?"

Ignoring him, Nabiki turned to her father. "He's a girl."

"Am not!"

"Then why do you have breasts?"

"First of all, some men have so much estrogen running in their system that they develop lactation. Some develop boobs. That means you'd have to check for the dangly bits. Second, I was about to say why I am a girl at the moment; I suppose a demonstration is in order."

Ranma picked up the cup of hot water in front of her and dumped it on her head, gasping due to the fact that his scalp was scalded. Now a male again, Ranma took off his shirt to reveal a muscular frame without breasts.

"Proof enough that I'm a guy?" he asked in a definitely-male voice.

"Oh my!" said Kasumi. _Did my heart just skip a beat or two?_

"What!?" asked Soun. _Why is his hair white? And what's with the eyebrows?_

"Wow!" exclaimed Nabiki. _He's a hunk! I wonder if I can get me some of that action?_

"Pervert!" declared Akane. _Why am I feeling so flushed?_

Ranma poured the other cup on his unconscious father's abused rear, returning him to human form. Due to the sudden pain of scalding-hot water coming in contact with his lacerated bottom, Genma yelped in pain and clung to the ceiling, now fully awake.

"Great of you to join us, Pops."

"Why you ungrateful..."

Genma shut up as soon as Ranma reached into his pocket and retrieved four crystal spheres from it and began spinning them around with his hand. The girls, even Akane, began wondering what else he could do with his hands (though the youngest Tendo quickly squashed those thoughts).

Before anyone spoke up, Kasumi stood and made for the nearby closet while Genma released his grip on the ceiling and landed on his feet. The eldest Tendo daughter returned with three more cushions and set them down in a pile for the bespectacled balding man to sit on. Though he winced in pain, it was more bearable than the single cushion allotted to everyone else.

"Anyway," began Ranma again, looking fiercely bored but still manipulating the orbs. "We change back to our regular forms when in contact with warm or hot water. Cool or cold water changes us into our cursed forms."

"Curse?" clarified Soun.

"Curses and magic are a farce," declared Nabiki.

Ranma's left hand stopped moving the spheres around. Genma suddenly became very nervous and was eyeing his son warily.

Ranma's bored face slowly turned to a grin before he grabbed his father by the back of his shirt and threw him through the open side door and towards the koi pond. Since they hadn't moved the stainless steel door from its position in there, Genma's screaming form hit it face-first. Before he fell into what was left of the pond, his form returned to being a panda.

"Still don't believe in magic?" asked Ranma of Nabiki, grinning evilly. "Or do I have to do an _actual_ demonstration?"

"That won't be necessary," she said very carefully as Genma limped back towards the house. Ranma smirked before relaxing into his bored pose, his spheres returning to their mesmerizing movements in his left hand.

"So, we got cursed in China because Pops decided to drag me to a cursed training ground called Jusenkyou despite not knowing a lick of Mandarin or Cantonese and not knowing how to read the kanji either. He was cursed due to his stupidity; I got cursed on purpose."

"I knew you were a pervert!"

Ranma rolled his eyes at Akane. "It's not like I knew which curse I was going to get, but I wanted one anyway."

"Why?" asked Soun.

"Well... I use some magic. By getting myself cursed I increased the power that I already command by a factor of three."

There was some silence after that.

"Did you hear about the marriage you've got arranged with one of my daughters?"

"Yeah. Wasn't sure I wanted to bother, but since I'm here, I might as well."

"Hey!" exclaimed Akane. "You don't think me or my sisters are worth anything!?"

"I never said that," replied Ranma, still bored. "Do not put words in my mouth. I was saying I didn't know whether any of you would be worth my time. I suppose we should find out, eh?"

"Well, my oldest is Kasumi, age nineteen. She knows how to clean and cook and she's very kind..."

While Soun was talking, Ranma glanced into one of the crystals.

_Seems like an elf. Hmmm..._

"... The youngest is Akane, age sixteen. She's a martial artist and one of the more popular girls in school..."

_Sorta goblinish, but she'd make a much better orc._

"... And finally there's Nabiki, age seventeen. She handles the money in this house but she is very smart."

_Hmmm... Not a typical goblin, but not too far off either._

"Oh! I know! How about Akane as you share a similar interest?"

"What!?" asked the youngest Tendo.

Ranma simply replied by firing one of the spheres from his left hand and hitting Soun right between the eyes, knocking him out.

"Pops? I trust that there won't be any more interruptions from the peanut gallery..."

Genma scrambled to drag Soun's unconscious form from the room.

"And don't be listening in either! I'll know!" Ranma called after him.

Once they were gone, Ranma turned back to a glaring Akane (because he hit her father), a smirking Nabiki (because of how well they both seemed to be able to control their respective fathers), and a confused Kasumi.

"What's the matter, Tendo-san?"

"Where did that orb go? It rolled away from Father's head after you hit him with it; I wouldn't want somebody to step or slip on it."

"Not to worry - it disappeared like this."

Ranma tossed the other three into the air which faded out of existence as they reached the peaks of their arcs and began to fall downwards. They were gone before they hit the floor.

"Now to choose one of you three..."

Ranma then made a show of thinking about which of the girls he wanted. Nabiki instantly knew he was acting and had already come to a decision - though her guess was wrong about the one he had chosen. Akane half hoped he wouldn't chose her, but she also wanted him to do so to verify that she was desirable. Kasumi was a bit more hopeful than her youngest sister about getting chosen, but she was also waiting for Doctor Tofu to get the hints she kept trying to drop him so she also hoped that she wouldn't get chosen.

Ranma was going over his decision one more time in his head. _Well, though Akane is goblinish, she's much like the idiot brutes that populate most of the masses. Besides, she'd make a much better orc - frontline cannon fodder. Kasumi is the fairest one, and has the largest breasts of the three... probably a screamer in bed... but she's too kind. She reminds me of elven women. I might be able to get her into an advisory role or a maid at the least. Nabiki... very smart, like I had hoped. She's also very perspective and is still very sexy. She might be best for a desk job, but she seems to be one who likes to manipulate her puppets from behind the curtain. She also seems to have an inner commanding strength that would allow her to remain in control, even amongst a brood of goblin children. Nabiki then._

"I have come to a decision!" Ranma declared dramatically. "My choice is... Bah! Forget the melodrama! I want Nabiki as my fiancée."

"WHAT!?" asked Akane.

"Oh my!" said Kasumi.

Nabiki said nothing. She was speechless. Also, her jaw was slack and her eyes were wide.

Soun, with a bandage on his forehead, rushed into the room.

"What happened!? Anyone hurt!?"

"Just my ego," muttered Akane as she stormed outside towards the dojo.

"Oh my! Ranma, I think you broke Nabiki's brain."

Displaying some intelligence that he hadn't shown before, Soun stopped and looked at the three remaining occupants. No physical harm done - Nabiki was simply shocked out of her wits. Soun had an idea of who Ranma picked but he wanted to confirm it.

"Who have you chosen, Ranma?"

"I have chosen Nabiki, Tendo-san."

Soun nodded. "That's what I thought. Kasumi-chan, could you get Genma some hot water? We'll be on the porch playing Go."

After both Kasumi and Soun had left the room, closing the doors for some privacy, Ranma waved his hand in front of Nabiki's face - no reaction. He shrugged and pulled a sphere out of his pocket. With a flick of his wrist, it became a tape measure. He measured the distance between her top and bottom jaws and the sides of her mouth. Ranma nodded and the tape measure disappeared.

Ranma sat back and was thoughtful for a moment about how to get Nabiki out of her daze. Nodding once he came to a decision, he walked around to behind Nabiki, leaving his shirt discarded by where he was sitting, and kneeled down, popping his knuckles. He gently began to massage her shoulders and the back of her neck, using more force whenever he found a knot in her muscles. Eventually, she seemed to come out of her stupor and began to mewl in pleasure. Eventually, she managed to speak again.

"Mmmm... a little lower please."

"So your brain's finally working again, eh?"

She gasped in pleasure as he hit a pressure point on her upper back. "... oh! Mmmm... yeah. Why didn't you pick Akane? Or Kasumi? Oh! Right there!"

"Are you complaining?" Ranma asked innocently.

"No. Mmmm... Just curious. Here, let me lay down on my stomach."

She gathered a couple of cushions from the floor and lay on top of them. To her surprise, and pleasure, Ranma sat on the back of her thighs, his knees arrayed on either side of her hips. Ranma began massaging her back again, but reached under the back of her shirt to do so. Nabiki began to pant, especially as Ranma began to hit pressure points that caused a great deal of pleasure.

"Quite frankly, your younger sister is an orc."

Nabiki giggled at the description. She agreed with the sentiment but thought it was a matter of course that every guy wanted Akane.

"Your older sister may be very beautiful, and I don't doubt her intelligence, but she's far too submissive for me."

"Oh oh! Yes! Keep doing that! Mmmm... I've never really been picked for anything and all the boys at school are either drooling over Akane or are afraid of me."

Ranma slid his hands a little lower down Nabiki's back, slightly disappointing her (because she was secretly hoping he would undo her bra and start massaging her chest) but still causing a lot of pleasure, especially since he began to hit the pleasurable nerve cluster in the small of her back.

"Afraid of you, eh? Why would they be afraid of you?"

"Oooh! Please don't stop!"

"Not going to unless you don't answer my question."

"Oh! OH! Yeah! Well, I tend to blackmail people or threaten them in some way to get money out of them. Yes! Right there! Do that again! Mmmm... I also hold betting rings. I like doing it and it puts food on the table... I'm sorry," she suddenly said, trying to get up. "You probably think I'm the scum of the earth right now..."

"Nonsense," replied Ranma as he forcefully pushed her back to the floor, exciting Nabiki a little. "I've always been attracted to bad girls." Ranma began massaging again, but stopped and frowned playfully. "Oh dear. Seems your paranoia made all those muscles tense again. I'll have to start over from the beginning!"

Blushing, Nabiki smiled at the thought. _I've finally gotten myself a man! And he likes me the way I am! And he's so skilled too! I wonder what else he can do... Mother, if you can hear me, thank you for sending me such a hunk!_

While seducing Nabiki again, Ranma thought about her magical core. It was powerful, but dormant, repressed. Either she didn't have enough exposure to magic for it to be active, or the trauma of her mother dying when she was little turned it off. Both cases seemed likely, and probably very common - more common than the magical communities knew, anyway.

* * *

Jareth sighed. _Ranma is one smooth operator. Too bad I was never able to bring Sarah to my will. Perhaps it's for the better, as she lost her goblinish tendencies as she got older._ Jareth sighed again. _Perhaps it's time I visit __Britain__ again... I'll need to change to my owl form though. Ranma will do fine without me._

* * *

Ranma proved his magical prowess when he threw another one of the crystal spheres at the gate door sticking out of the koi pond. Because Ranma had done so much chaos recently, his spells had a period where they would do only what he wanted them to do with no side-effects, and so the door floated into the air, righted itself, and hovered over to where the gate was. Another sphere and the gate was fully repaired.

Soun, though shocked, had been exposed to weird stuff, especially during his training under Happosai and was able to shrug off the strangeness of it all. Kasumi took it as a matter of fact - she seemed to genuinely believe in magic anyway but it was a crying shame her magical core was so low in power that she was non-magical. Akane seemed to be pissed about it - no doubt jealous that some pervert boy could do something that she could not. Nabiki was curious about it, now that she had proof that magic existed.

Nabiki had tried asking several basic questions on the subject.

"So, where does your power come from?"

"From my magical core. Every living thing has one, from the smallest of microorganisms to the largest of planets. Also, places that have been exposed to a lot of magical power or magical objects tend to hold a great deal of magical power as well."

"How is it controlled?"

"With one's mind and intellect, though a lot of spells have some sort of physical aspect to it, such as a ritual, incantation, or a focus of some kind."

"Focus? You mean like those spheres?"

"Precisely."

"Can anybody do magic?"

"Not everyone or everything can do magic. If one's magical core is not powerful enough, then they can not do magic."

"Could I learn magic?"

"Potentially. You have a strong magical core, unlike your sisters, but it is somehow dormant, sealed off. I do not yet know of a procedure to reverse the process, but I'll look into it."

Ranma hated to lie to Nabiki like that, but he wasn't sure how freaked-out she might get if he took her to the Labyrinth. Maybe he'd take her there for the birthday party Jareth was planning for him.

"What kind of magic do you use?"

"Every kind. Any kind. It's called chaos magic. Very powerful; very risky."

"Risky?" She sounded worried.

"Hard to predict, such that chaos is. Most, if not all, of my spells tend to have side-effects of one kind or another. But chaos can do anything. Anyway, the reason why my recent spells did only what I wanted them to do was because I have caused a great deal of chaos and confusion recently, so my spells are rather orderly at the moment."

* * *

For the rest of the day, Ranma went around without his shirt - partially because he liked showing off, partially because Nabiki liked the way he looked, partially to piss off Akane, and partially because he didn't feel like wearing it at the moment - it was somewhat wet anyway. Sure, he had spare ones that were dry (in fact, that was how he was wearing dry pants), but he cared not.

When it stopped raining later, Akane challenged Ranma to a spar in the dojo where it was dry - Nabiki brought her still camera. Soun and Genma decided to watch as well; Kasumi brought snacks and drinks.

Ranma watched Akane as she stretched while he did some small stretches of his own. She seemed to take him seriously, but he could tell that she was all brawn and no brain, speed, or skill, simply by the way she moved. She then got into a ready stance; he simply relaxed into a non-stance, irritating his opponent.

"Aren't you going to get ready?"

"With someone of such low skill? Nope. This is all you get."

"Don't underestimate me!"

"What makes you think I am?"

With a growl Akane rushed forward, bringing her fist back for a solid right hook. This time, Ranma was irritated - she was telegraphing her moves and she expected him to take her seriously? Not on her life!

As she came close enough to take a swing at him, he moved out of the way fluidly, but left his foot in her path. She tripped over it and fell on her face.

"Hey! I wasn't ready!"

"Really? Then what convinced you to charge at me while you weren't ready? Never attack if you aren't ready to take a hit."

Over on the sidelines, Genma turned to Soun.

"Have you trained her at all? Seems she has been weak a long time."

"I tried to, but after Akiko died I simply lost the will to teach."

"Ah. It shows. Perhaps Ranma or I will be able to fix it then."

Genma suddenly fell backwards. It was probably due to the fact that Ranma threw another sphere at his head.

"Though they have been useful in teaching things to me, you'd probably kill her with your methods."

"You think I couldn't do it!?"

"I know you couldn't. Strength training by climbing up a sheer cliff face while Pops threw boulders the size of minivans at you? How about speed training by means of angering a hornets' nest? Endurance training by stealing the kills of feral wolves and then running from them while carrying Pops and the corpses? No. You'd be dead in a few hours."

Shocked, Soun turned to Genma who had the gall to look embarrassed.

Undaunted, Akane attacked again, lashing out with her foot, but Ranma dodged by somersaulting over her head. When he landed behind her he tapped the back of her skull with a single finger.

"Dead," was all he said.

Frustrated, she swung at him again. He didn't move to block it or dodge it - he simply caught it with his face. Shocked that he didn't fall over, or even move in fact, Akane removed her fist from his face.

"Outclassed," retorted Ranma. "Though I don't blame you. Pops and I have been training almost nonstop for the past decade with methods that would kill most people. Your father probably stopped training you after your mother died, so you are stuck in some bad habits that should have been ironed out when you were little."

Akane looked about ready to cry.

"But I don't think the damage is irreversible. We'll first figure out how to teach you to punch properly... wait, is the wall around the estate made of stone?"

"Yes, it is," replied Soun.

"Well, there's one training method."

"You want me to punch the wall?"

"No. I want you to stand next to the wall and punch without touching it."

"Huh?"

"I'll show you later."

"Well, I'm still a little angry that you didn't take me more seriously."

"If I took you seriously, you'd be dead. Out of respect for your sister, Nabiki, I'll have to pull my punches."

"... Okay. Well, I'm going to the furo now, but if you peek on me or use your magic to do so..."

"Akane, that is the last thing on my mind. Now if it was Nabiki-chan in there..."

"Feh. Pervert."

Ranma turned to Nabiki to see that she was blushing. He smirked.

* * *

End Chapter Four.

Next Chapter: schooling the schoolyard.

Author's Notes

Long time no see. Well, for this story anyway.

I thank Sean Malloy for the idea with how to meet the Tendos and Lord Shadner for some of the lines therein.

If you noticed, I have raised the rating to M due to how limes are going to worm their way into this story (I blame my muse for this). There will still be no lemons (I have vowed never to write one), but the fic is going to get a little perverted from here on out.

No need to think too hard about why Ranma measured Nabiki's mouth.

Thanks to Vassago-Toxicity for being my beta. Well-wishing to Cylon One.


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